Maintaining excellence: deliberate practice and elite performance in young and older pianists.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional comparative study evaluated by non-clinical design analogy.
PubMed 8945787 · doi:10.1037//0096-3445.125.4.331
What was done
Two studies evaluated young and older expert and accomplished amateur pianists. Researchers measured general processing speed alongside performance on music-related cognitive-motor tasks, and assessed how the amount of deliberate practice during later adulthood related to skill maintenance.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, effect sizes, or test statistics. Older experts and amateurs both demonstrated typical age-related reductions in standard measures of general processing speed. On domain-specific music tasks, amateur pianists showed comparable age-graded declines, but older expert pianists performed only slightly below young experts. Deliberate practice volume in later adulthood predicted skill retention among older expert pianists.
Why it matters
This study provides evidence that domain-specific deliberate practice can offset typical age-related functional declines in expert cognitive-motor performance, even while general processing speed declines.
Limits
The abstract omits sample sizes, participant demographics, specific task protocols, and all quantitative data. As an observational, cross-sectional design, it cannot definitively establish whether deliberate practice caused skill preservation or if self-selection and innate resilience influenced continued practice.
Cited by
- supports In a study comparing young and older expert and amateur pianists on piano-specific motor tasks, the primary predictor of performance was amount of practice rather than age.